


The Babysitter

by Darkshines1984



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-28 01:29:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15037736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkshines1984/pseuds/Darkshines1984
Summary: Charity finds herself playing super mum, super gran and babysitter all on the same afternoon. Asked for by @brandxc on tumblr.





	The Babysitter

“Are you sure this is okay?” Debbie asked, glancing around the living room – “you already look like you have your hands full.”

Charity’s day off was not going to plan. Ross had surprised her by turning up with Moses in the morning and handing him over. Johnny’s day care had been closed due to ill staff and Vanessa was meant to be in work today. Her girlfriend had been willing to ring Rhona and apologise but Charity had offered to take him. If she had one small child already then what difference would another make?

Apparently, it made quite a significant difference – or so she’d learnt this morning. When they were playing together it was great but then they would decide they wanted to do different things. Every time Charity turned her back on one of them they seemed to get up to mischief.  Moses more so than Johnny – her son had the Dingle gene which thankfully Johnnybobs lacked.

Now it appeared she would be adding her grandchildren to the equation because Debbie needed to go to the garage for the afternoon. Sarah was off school whilst she was waiting on the donor’s list for a new heart and Jack had only been in school for the morning. Sarah wouldn’t be an issue, in fact she might be quite helpful, but Jack would only add to the melee.

“I can manage thank you very much” she replied with an air of false confidence.

Just as the words left her mouth, Moses squeezed a large amount of red paint from one of the tubes and completely missed the plastic palette. Thankfully she had put a plastic sheet over the coffee table or it would have made a right old mess. Her youngest son’s only reaction was a cheeky giggle before he tried to rectify the situation by scooping it up in his hands and squeezing it back onto the palette. Charity cringed at the mess he was making and the slightly smug look it drew from her oldest.

“How about I help Moses with his art?” Sarah offered.

The oldest of her two grandchildren (she hated the term – it made her sound old) scooted across the room and sat down on the edge of the sofa next to Moses. Charity gave Sarah a grateful look before turning her focus to the other two children in the room. Jack was watching Johnny play with a toy T-Rex with an amused interest. Moses may have spent quite a bit of time with her girlfriend’s son, but Debbie’s kids had only met him once at a family meal after Charity had told her family about Bails.

“How about you Jack?” Charity asked her youngest grandchild - “Are you doing art with Moses and Sarah or baking with me and Johnny?”

“Baking?” Debbie asked.

Charity shuffled from foot to foot under her daughter’s scrutiny. She was more than aware she had been a pretty lousy parent, but she was genuinely trying to do better. She’d even bought a handful of activities for children when she had been out shopping for the rare occasions they did have Moses and Johnny there together.  

“We are making fairy cakes and once they are ready I have lots of icing for the kids to decorate them with” she explained.

“That’s very…wholesome” Debbie smirked.

Charity rolled her eyes at her daughter. She’d heard all of this before from both Debbie and Chas – about how Vanessa was good for her and made her a better person. Charity had no doubt that it was true – it just got irritating to hear it sometimes because it was a strong reminder of all her past faults. It also played on her fears that Vanessa was too good for her and that one day the smaller blonde might realise that. Considering how hard she had fought against being in a relationship with Vanessa at first, Charity couldn’t bear the thought of losing her now.

“Haven’t you got work to get too?” she sniped at Debbie.

Her daughter just smirked even more at her tone before leaving her to her kid sitting duties. Charity turned her focus to the four children and took a deep steadying breath. She could do this. She could be super mum slash gran slash babysitter.

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Charity was just taking the fairy cakes out of the oven when Noah arrived home from school. The open plan kitchen, dining and living area looked a bit like a bomb had hit it. Toys littered the floor as well as pieces of ‘art’ the kids had been making all afternoon. As much as Sarah had tried to supervise the painting, some of the paint had ended up on the floor and up the table legs – mainly in Moses shaped handprints. Quite a lot of paint had ended up on her youngest son too – his hands completely red with bits of blue and yellow on his face and down his jumper.

Most of the fairy cake mixture had ended up in the moulds but some had ended up on the kitchen units and down Johnny’s front. Jack had fared better at the baking before turning his focus to drawing lots of pictures with crayons – thankfully that didn’t make much mess – although god knows where half the crayons had ended up. Johnny hadn’t left Charity’s side and had followed her around the kitchen area as she tried to clean up. She had nearly stood on him twice already, but he was so cute it was hard to get angry with him.

“Hi babe” Charity greeted her teenage son.

She sounded slightly fraught. She had meant to sound cheerful and carefree – like super mum. Unfortunately, her acting skills had betrayed her for once and Noah certainly didn’t hide his surprise well when he looked around the room. His eyebrows shot so high they nearly leapt of his head.

“That’s a lot of kids” he stated.

Charity nodded her head in his direction as she placed the last of the fairy cakes onto the cooling rack. Sarah looked relieved to see him – obviously glad to have someone of her own age group to talk too. Not that he ever said very much at the moment – he was a typica teenage lad on that front.

“Okay so we just need to leave them to cool and then we can decorate them” Charity enthused towards the younger boys. Noah looked like he was about to howl with laughter at her, so she scowled at the teenager.

“Don’t say a word” Charity grumbled at him.

“Do I get to decorate one?” he asked with a false and sarcastic eagerness.

Charity was about to retort with an equally sarcastic remark but was distracted by a little voice and a tug to her trouser leg.

“Mummy” Vanessa’s son piped up.

Charity looked to the doorway behind Noah but there was no one there. She looked around the room in bewilderment – her girlfriend was nowhere to be seen.

“Mummy” Johnny repeated – looking up at her as he spoke.

“I think he is talking to you” Noah chuckled.

Charity looked at her teenage son in horror before looking down at Vanessa’s toddler. He was still looking up at her questioningly – obviously wondering why she wasn’t responding to him. She felt her jaw drop as she gazed down at him and everyone in the room seemed to go silent. The silence was deafening.

Charity had been making a real effort to form a relationship with him recently. The more she had started to believe that Vanessa was a permanent fixture in her life the more she had tried to involve the kids in their relationship. Some of that had been in an attempt to improve Noah and Vanessa’s relationship which had gotten off to a poor start. Some of it was to prove that she was serious about them and their future together. Charity was useless with words so telling Vanessa any of this just hadn’t happened. Showing the smaller woman had been a more productive option.

That was the frightening thing about Johnny calling her mum already. She hadn’t even told her girlfriend that she loved her yet. It had been on the tip of her tongue on several occasions, but it had never seemed to be the right time. Vanessa had never said it either although Charity suspected her girlfriend would hold back and let her say it first. Johnny, in all his childish innocence, didn’t have any concerns about her emotional baggage – or how calling her mum might make her heart beat so violently in her chest that she felt dizzy.

“Yes Johnny” Charity finally croaked out.

“Loo” the toddler replied – lifting both arms towards her so she could pick him up.

Charity reached down and lifted him up, still in a daze and balanced him on her hip. He looked at her expectantly again and a little bit adoringly. It made Charity feel oddly emotional that he was looking to her as a parental figure, especially when she felt like a failure with her own half the time.  She lifted him a bit higher, so his arms were around her neck and pressed a kiss to his temple.

“Come on then Johnnybobs” she chuckled.

 

 

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

 

Icing the fairy cakes with all the kids (including Noah) had fallen between a genius idea and mayhem. Moses and Johnny had spent as much of the time trying to squeeze the tubes of icing into their mouths as they had decorating. Charity had no idea how many E numbers they had consumed in the process. Noah and Sarah had taken their decorating very seriously and their two fairy cakes had ended up looking like masterpieces. Jack had also tried to decorate his seriously and you could sort of make out the football on one and what she thought may be a dog (or possibly a dinosaur) on the other. Johnny and Moses cakes looked like a colourful mess – or potentially million-dollar pieces of modern art.

It had taken so much energy out of Charity policing the two of them that she hadn’t bothered cleaning. She’d left the cakes out for the icing to set and wiped the worst of it of their hands and faces with baby wipes, before moving the entire brood through to the living room. Noah had put one of the kids channels on for Jack to watch. Her younger grandson had happily sat on the floor, his back against the sofa his older sister and Noah were perched on, with his eyes glued to the cartoon. Noah and Sarah were playing on their phones – apparently against each other – although Charity had no idea what they were playing or if she even really wanted to know.

The two youngest children were exhausted despite the amount of sugar they had ingested. They weren’t the only ones – Charity was totally wiped out. She had slumped across the other sofa expecting the two of them to play with Moses’ dinosaurs on the floor by her. She was rather relived when the two of them had climbed up on the sofa with her – Moses sliding down between her and the back of the sofa and Johnny curling up on her stomach – his head resting on her chest. It was a favourite position of his mother too – using her breasts as pillows.

Moses had fallen asleep almost immediately and Johnny had lightly dosed – rather like Charity herself who slipped in and out of sleep – waking every time one of the two of them shifted or the other kids made a noise. She was awake but resting her eyes when Johnny shifted again and sat up.

“Mummy” he chirped up.

Charity reached out and stroked his arm – she wondered if he needed the toilet again or if he was just awake and bored. She hoped it wasn’t the later because she could barely open her eyes she was that exhausted still.

“You okay babe?” she asked.

He didn’t respond to her but seemed to bounce with excitement. Charity cracked one eye open to find he was looking rather animatedly towards the door of the living room. When Charity opened her other eye and turned her head to look in the same direction she realised what had made him so excited. Her girlfriend was stood in the doorway, leaning on the wooden frame, with a huge beaming smile on her face.

“Oh, actual biological mummy” Charity chuckled.

Vanessa stepped into the room, a look of confusion gracing her pretty features at Charity’s words. The smaller woman sat in the small space at the edge of the sofa by Charity’s hips – stroking Johnny’s hair with one hand and resting the other on Charity’s ribs.

“He’s been calling Granny that all afternoon” Sarah explained – barely looking up from her phone as she spoke.

Charity cringed at the use of the term ‘granny’ hoping to god that Sarah or Jack didn’t call Vanessa that anytime soon. It made Charity feel damn old but Vanessa’s only and therefore oldest kid was only a toddler. The smaller woman wouldn’t have expected to be a grandma for quite some time.

Vanessa looked from her son to Charity and smiled warmly again. She didn’t get a chance to ask what her girlfriend was thinking before the smaller woman leant down and kissed her softly and briefly on the lips, before sitting up again.

“Thank you for having him” Vanessa smiled – “I reckon I know which of the cakes were his and Moses’ handy work!”

Charity had almost forgotten about the mess that awaited her in the other room. She couldn’t leave it for much longer though because Chas would finish her shift in a couple of hours and would go mad at her if it still looked like a warzone.

“I should go clean-up” the landlady sighed.

She shifted on the sofa – about to sit up when Vanessa placed her palm against her chest and pushed her back down again.

“You stay there and relax” her girlfriend cooed - “I’ll clean up and order us all some pizza for tea.”

Charity lay back and grinned at Vanessa. She could tell that there had been brownie points won today and despite her exhaustion was feeling rather pleased about it. If she could convince Ness to stay over even though she had Johnny, then no doubt she would be rewarded handsomely for her days endeavours. She was damn sure she could find the energy for that.

“You coming with me little man or are you staying with mummy Charity?” Vanessa asked her son – a coy smile on her face as she spoke.

Charity could feel a blush rising to her own cheeks – a blush that was enhanced when Johnny plonked himself back down on her chest and got comfy again. Her girlfriend’s face lit up and it hit Charity in that moment how important it was for Vanessa that Johnny saw her as family. It gave her even more belief in their relationship and she was sure she was grinning like a fool. Vanessa swooped down again and kissed Johnny’s head, then a sleeping Moses’ head and finally Charity’s.

“Where is mine?” Noah quipped sarcastically from the other sofa.

Vanessa was across the room in a shot – hardly giving him time to protest before she planted a noisy kiss on his temple. He was caught half way between protesting at the affection and laughing at her girlfriend’s antics. Sarah certainly seemed to find it amusing and had practically pushed him in Ness’s direction when he had tried to duck the kiss.

“That’ll teach ya” Vanessa chuckled, before calmly strolling off into the other room.

Noah shook his head and turned his focus back to his phone, but he was smiling – Charity could see the grin he was trying to hide. He was warming to Vanessa, slowly but surely. He’d been better ever since she had told him about Bails and he realised what the smaller woman was supporting Charity through. Perhaps it had started to give him the belief that Vanessa was going to stay around too. She couldn’t really blame him for fearing getting close to the other woman only to have Charity ruin it.

They were slowly starting to become some sort of family unit though. A couple of months ago that idea would have still terrified Charity but now – now she actually kind of longed for it and the stability Vanessa seemed to bring to her life. Now all she needed was the chance to bring Ryan into her family too. Vanessa made her believe that even that could be possible too.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading - comments always very much appreciated x


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